Exoduschapter 1
22 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th or 13th century BC · The Law
These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Exodus Overview.
This chapter opens the second book of the Law and joins it to the last page of Genesis. It was written for a people who had been slaves in Egypt and needed to know how their bondage began. The family Genesis followed has become a nation, and the promises made to the fathers now stand against the strongest king on earth. Listen for the report that returns after each of the king's schemes, and for who is named and who is left unnamed. Read it as the problem the whole book sets out to answer.
Context
- Who
- Israel in the wilderness, being told exactly what they had been bought out of
- What
- A narrative chapter that joins Exodus to Genesis and reports how Israel grew into a nation and how Egypt's king tried three times to crush it.
- Where
- Goshen and the eastern Nile Delta, where Israel laboured on the king's store cities of Pithom and Rameses.
- When
- The generations after Joseph's death, before the traditional date of Moses' birth about 1526 BC, with the late dating of the exodus placing it in the thirteenth century BC.
- Why
- To show that the bondage in Egypt fulfilled what God told Abram and that no king could stop the growth God had promised.
Historical context
The book claims Moses as its writer, at Exodus 17:14, Exodus 24:4 and Exodus 34:27, where he writes at the LORD's own command. Julius Wellhausen read Exodus instead as a later compilation from separate sources, in his Prolegomena to the History of Israel of 1878, and the critical tradition has followed him.
Show the rest of the historical context, 2 more paragraphs
The events stand in the years of slavery before the exodus, and the year is held two ways. Scholars who read 1 Kings 6:1 literally put the exodus at about 1446 BC, and scholars who read the store cities of verse 11 as Ramesside put it in the thirteenth century BC. The place is the eastern Nile Delta, the district Genesis 47:11 calls the land of Rameses, where Joseph had settled the family. The occasion is a change of policy under a king who did not acknowledge Joseph.
A first hearer knew what a supply depot was built of. Egypt raised its Delta towns in sun-dried mud brick, because the Delta has no quarry stone, and New Kingdom papyri record labour gangs with daily brick quotas set by a scribe. He knew that conscript labour was an ordinary instrument of the Egyptian state, and that Semitic-speaking foreigners in the eastern Delta appear in Egyptian records as herdsmen and as workers. He also knew the birthstool, the low pair of bricks or stools a woman knelt on to deliver, so the order of verse 16 was an order to kill in the moment of delivery.
Significance
A people that had gone down as seventy honoured guests had become a labour pool to be worked and then culled. This chapter names the sequence.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
It also gave Israel the first two heroes of its national story, two midwives who feared God more than they feared Pharaoh and were given households of their own for it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi reads the multiplying of Israel in verse 7 as a mercy inside the body. The women, he says, did not miscarry "and did not die when they were young" (Rashi on Exodus 1:7:1). At verse 17 he holds that the midwives did more than spare the boys. They "provided them with food", and he points to the tractate Sotah for it (Rashi on Exodus 1:17:1). At verse 19 he gives two readings of the word the midwives use. The plain sense is that the Hebrew women are as skilful as midwives themselves. The Sages took the same word for the beasts of the field, which "do not require the help of midwives" (Rashi on Exodus 1:19:1). The verse 7 note is the Sefaria Community Translation, released CC0. The other two are the Rosenbaum and Silbermann Rashi of 1929 to 1934, in the public domain. Ibn Ezra comments through the chapter as well. The corpus carries him by reference alone, because the licence Sefaria reports for his translation holds the words back (Ibn Ezra on Exodus 1:9:1 and 1:14:1).
What the rabbis say
The rabbis take up the new king of verse 8 at Eruvin 53a:10. On the order given to the midwives they taught in Kohelet Rabbah 7:1:3 and Midrash Aggadah, Exodus 1:15:1. On Israel growing under affliction they taught at Kiddushin 13a:13. The Mekhilta carries this chapter at Tractate Pischa 5:6 and Tractate Shirah 5:5.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Exodus 1:7:1, the Sefaria Community Translation (CC0); Rashi, Rashi on Exodus 1:17:1 and 1:19:1, Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934 (public domain); Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Exodus 1:9:1 and 1:14:1, cited by ref alone under the corpus licence rule; The Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 53a:10 and Kiddushin 13a:13, cited by ref; The Midrash, Kohelet Rabbah 7:1:3, Midrash Aggadah, Exodus 1:15:1, and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 5:6 and Tractate Shirah 5:5, cited by ref.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Israel Multiplies in Egypt
Exodus 1:1-4
The book opens with the word And, so in Hebrew it reads as the next paragraph of Genesis rather than the start of something separate, and its Hebrew title is taken from this verse, Shemoth, meaning names. The list compresses Genesis 46:8 to 27, running Leah's six sons first, then Rachel's Benjamin, then the four born to Bilhah and Zilpah. Joseph is left out of the roll because he was in Egypt before any of them arrived.
Exodus 1:1
“Now - Literally, “And,” indicating a close connection with the preceding narrative. In fact this chapter contains a fulfillment of the predictions recorded in Gen 46:3 and in Gen 15:13. Every man and his household - It may be inferred from various notices that the total number of dependents was considerable, a point of importance in its bearings upon the history of the Exodus (compare Gen 13:6; Gen 14:14).”
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah: The list opens with the first four sons Leah bore to Jacob, named in the order of their birth. Exodus begins by naming the family that entered Egypt, so that its growth into a nation can be measured against this small household. Matthew Henry says these names are repeated so often in Scripture that they become familiar, and that the repetition shows how precious God's people are to Him.
Exodus 1:2
“A recital of the names of the twelve patriarchs, as they are called, Acts vii. Their names are often repeated in scripture, that they may not sound uncouth to us, as other hard names, but that, by their occurring so frequently, they may become familiar to us; and to show how precious God's spiritual Israel are to him, and how much he delights in them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin: Issachar and Zebulun were the last two sons Leah bore, and Benjamin was the second son of Rachel, born on the road to Bethlehem. The list moves from the sons of Leah to the sons of Rachel, and Joseph is missing only because he was already in Egypt. Matthew Henry, on this list of names, says they are repeated so often that they grow familiar to readers.
Dan and Naphtali: The list closes with the sons of the two servant women, Dan and Naphtali born to Bilhah and Gad and Asher born to Zilpah. The order groups the sons by their mothers, with the sons of the two wives first. Matthew Henry, on this list, says the names of the twelve patriarchs recur throughout Scripture to show how much God delights in His people.
Exodus 1:4
“Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. Who are last mentioned, being sons of the concubine wives.”
Exodus 1:5-6
Seventy is the number Genesis 46:27 gives for the household that went down, and Stephen says threescore and fifteen at Acts 7:14, following the Septuagint, which counts further descendants of Joseph. The Hebrew text and the Greek text differ here and both readings have long been held. Genesis closes with Joseph in a coffin in Egypt, and this verse reports the rest of that generation gone with him, which is how a family with standing at court becomes a people with none.
Exodus 1:5
“This was just the number of the nations by which the earth was peopled, according to the account given, Gen. x. For when the Most High separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel, as Moses observes, Deut. xxxii. Notice is here taken of this that their increase in Egypt might appear the more wonderful.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Now Joseph and all his brothers: Joseph, all his brothers and the whole generation that came down with Jacob died. With them went the living memory of what Joseph had done for Egypt, which prepares for the new king of verse 8. John Calvin reads the verse as marking the beginning of the change, and holds that until then the Israelites had been treated kindly and lived in peace as guests.
Exodus 1:6
“All that generation by degrees wore off. Perhaps all Jacob's sons died much about the same time; for there was not more than seven years' difference in age between the eldest and the youngest of them, except Benjamin; and, when death comes into a family, sometimes it makes a full end in a little time.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 1:6
“How long they survived their father, Moses does not say, but only marks the beginning of the change, -- as much as to say, the Israelites were humanely treated for a considerable space of time; so that the condition of those who went down with Jacob was tolerable, since, free from all injustice and tyranny, they tranquilly enjoyed the hospitality accorded to them.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Five verbs pile up in one verse, fruitful, increased abundantly, multiplied, waxed exceeding mighty, and the land was filled. Three of those words come straight out of the blessing at Genesis 1:28, and a fourth, increased abundantly, is the verb Genesis 1:20 and 9:7 use of swarming life. The creation command is being carried out by a family living in a country that is not theirs, and the promise of a great nation at Genesis 12:2 is kept in the years this narrative passes over without a story.
Exodus 1:7
“And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly - Like fishes or insects, so that they multiplied; and being generally healthful and strong, they waxed exceeding mighty, so that the land was filled with them, at least Goshen, their own allotment. This wonderful increase was the product of the promise long before made to the fathers.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 1:7
“In no province does the population increase so rapidly as in that which was occupied by the Israelites. See the note at Gen 47:6. At present it has more flocks and herds than any province in Egypt, and more fishermen, though many villages are deserted. Until the accession of the new king, the relations between the Egyptians and the Israelites were undoubtedly friendly. The expressions used in this verse imply the lapse of a considerable period after the death of Joseph. The land was filled with them - i. e. the district allotted to them Gen 45:10.”
A King Who Knew Not Joseph
Stephen quotes this verse at Acts 7:18 when he tells Israel's story to the council, another king arose, which knew not Joseph. The Hebrew verb rendered knew often carries the sense of acknowledging rather than being informed, so what the verse reports may be a policy rather than a gap in the records. Which Pharaoh this was is disputed and the text gives no name: an earlier date puts the oppression under the eighteenth dynasty, and a later date puts it under Rameses II, whose name stands on one of the cities in the next verses. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown reckon a change of dynasty about sixty years after Joseph died.
Exodus 1:8
“Now there arose up a new king--About sixty years after the death of Joseph a revolution took place--by which the old dynasty was overthrown, and upper and lower Egypt were united into one kingdom.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Exodus 1:9-10
Pharaoh's case to his people is that the Hebrews are more and mightier than we, which is the language of the promise repeated by a frightened man. The plan is presented as calculation, let us deal wisely with them, and the danger it names is a war in which they change sides and get them up out of the land. Leaving the land is exactly what God is about to bring about, so the policy is built to prevent the thing it ends up producing. Matthew Henry notes that men who deal wickedly commonly believe they are dealing wisely.
Exodus 1:9
“He said unto his people - He probably summoned a council of his nobles and elders to consider the subject; and the result was to persecute and destroy them, as is afterwards stated.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
let us deal shrewdly with them: The new king proposes a policy of cunning against a people he fears. His worry is twofold, that Israel will keep growing and that in a war they will side with Egypt's enemies and leave the country. Adam Clarke reports the suggestion that the king had in mind the shepherd kings who had once ruled Egypt cruelly, and assumed the Israelite shepherds shared their aims.
Exodus 1:10
“They join also unto our enemies - It has been conjectured that Pharaoh had probably his eye on the oppressions which Egypt had suffered under the shepherd-kings, who for a long series of years had, according to Manetho, governed the land with extreme cruelty. As the Israelites were of the same occupation, (viz., shepherds), the jealous, cruel king found it easy to attribute to them the same motives; taking it for granted that they were only waiting for a favorable opportunity to join the enemies of Egypt, and so overrun the whole land.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 1:11-12
The first measure is economic, taskmasters set over them and burdens laid on, and the labour produces two store cities, Pithom and Raamses. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown place both in the eastern delta near the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, which is the district Genesis 47:11 calls the land of Rameses, where Joseph had settled the family. Genesis 15:13 told Abram his seed would be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and would be afflicted there, and the affliction begins in this verse. The result runs against the intention, since the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.
Exodus 1:11
“Pithom (Greek, Patumos), lay on the eastern Pelusiac branch of the Nile, about twelve Roman miles from Heliopolis; and Raamses, called by the Septuagint Heroopolis, lay between the same branch of the Nile and the Bitter Lakes.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the more they were oppressed: Oppression produced the opposite of what the king intended, for Israel multiplied and spread under it. The Egyptians answered with dread, a word that joins fear with loathing, and the policy grew harsher in the verses that follow. Adam Clarke reads the Hebrew as a strict proportion, so that as the affliction grew, the increase grew with it.
Exodus 1:12
“But the more they afflicted them - The margin has pretty nearly preserved the import of the original: And as they afflicted them, so they multiplied and so they grew That is, in proportion to their afflictions was their prosperity; and had their sufferings been greater, their increase would have been still more abundant.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 1:13-14
The Hebrew root abad stands five times in these two verses, carried in English by serve, bondage, service, service and serve. It is the loudest repetition in the chapter and an English reader cannot hear it, because one root covers forced labour and worship alike. The rest of the book turns on that word: the demand to Pharaoh is let my people go, that they may serve me, at 4:23, 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13 and 10:3, the passover is called this service at 12:25, and the book ends in chapter 40 with a tent, a priesthood and an order of service. Israel does not stop serving, and what changes is the master.
Exodus 1:13
“And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour. Or with breach (c), with what might tend to break their strength; they laid heavier burdens upon them, obliged them to harder service, used them more cruelly and with greater fierceness, adding to their hard service ill words, and perhaps blows. (c) בפרך "in fractione", Cajetan. apud Rivet.”
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Exodus 1:13
“To serve with rigour - בפרך bepharech, with cruelty, great oppression; being ferocious with them. The word fierce is supposed by some to be derived from the Hebrew, as well as the Latin ferox, from which we more immediately bring our English term. This kind of cruelty to slaves, and ferociousness, unfeelingness, and hard-heartedness, were particularly forbidden to the children of Israel. See Lev 25:43, Lev 25:46, where the same word is used: Thou shalt not rule over him with Rigor, but shalt fear thy God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
made their lives bitter: The work was in brick and mortar and in the fields, and the verse stresses that every task was imposed harshly. The word bitter looks ahead to the bitter herbs Israel will eat at the Passover in chapter 12. Adam Clarke says the cruelty of their treatment made painful labor worse. Gregory of Nazianzus used the clay and bricks as a picture of the bondage of this life.
Exodus 1:14
“They made their lives bitter - So that they became weary of life, through the severity of their servitude. With hard bondage - בעבדה קשה baabodah kashah, with grievous servitude. This was the general character of their life in Egypt; it was a life of the most painful servitude, oppressive enough in itself, but made much more so by the cruel manner of their treatment while performing their tasks.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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Exodus 1:14
“I have already lived through many paschs, which was the fruit of a long life. But now I desire a purer pasch: to depart from this Egypt, the heavy and dark Egypt of this life, and to be freed from the clay and bricks that held us in bondage and to pass over to the land of promise.”
Gregory of Nazianzus · written before 390 · LETTER 120patristic
The Midwives Who Feared God
Exodus 1:15-16
Two midwives are given names, Shiphrah and Puah, and the king who summons them is not, which is how the chapter distributes weight. Whether they were Hebrew women or Egyptian women who attended the Hebrews has been argued from the phrase itself and from the names, and the older commentators divide over it. The word rendered stools occurs in one other place in the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah 18:3, where it is the potter's wheels, and Adam Clarke takes it for a birthing stone or trough. Pharaoh's second measure moves from work to birth, and it asks women to kill the children they are called in to deliver.
Exodus 1:15
“The two midwives he tampered with in order hereunto are here named; and perhaps, at this time, which was above eighty years before their going out of Egypt, those two might suffice for all the Hebrew women, at least so many of them as lay near the court, as it is plain by ch. ii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
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Exodus 1:15
“Hebrew midwifes - Or “midwives of the Hebrew women.” This measure at once attested the inefficacy of the former measures, and was the direct cause of the event which issued in the deliverance of Israel, namely, the exposure of Moses. The women bear Egyptian names, and were probably Egyptians.”
observe them on the birthstools: The king moves from forced labor to killing, ordering the midwives to kill every Hebrew boy at birth. The Hebrew word rendered birthstools occurs elsewhere only in Jeremiah 18:3, where it names a potter's wheel, and its exact sense is uncertain. Adam Clarke records the view that it meant a stone trough for washing the newborn. Methodius of Olympus read Pharaoh here as a type of the devil.
Exodus 1:16
“Thus too it has been said that the Pharaoh of Egypt was a type of the devil, in that he cruelly ordered the males to be cast into the Nile and permitted the females to live. So too the devil, ruling over the great Egypt of the world "from Adam unto Moses," made an effort to carry off and destroy the male and rational offspring of the soul in the flood of the passions, while he takes delight in seeing the carnal and sensual offspring increase and multiply.”
Methodius of Olympus · written before 311 · BANQUET OF THE TEN VIRGINS 4.2patristic
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Exodus 1:16
“Upon the stools - על האבנים al haobnayim. This is a difficult word, and occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible but in Jer 18:3, where we translate it the potter’s wheels. As אכי signifies a stone, the obnayim has been supposed to signify a stone trough, in which they received and washed the infant as soon as born.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 1:17-18
The fear of God is set directly against the command of a king, and the midwives act on the first. Gill and Clarke both point out that Genesis 9:6 had already put the shedding of man's blood under sentence long before Sinai, so the women had a standard in hand to obey. The king then summons them to ask why, which means an order carrying the whole power of Egypt behind it had been quietly refused by two women whose names the text keeps.
Exodus 1:17
“The midwives feared God - Because they knew that God had forbidden murder of every kind; for though the law was not yet given, Exo 20:13, being Hebrews they must have known that God had from the beginning declared, Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, Gen 9:6. Therefore they saved the male children of all to whose assistance they were called. See Clarke’s note on Exo 1:19.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
summoned the midwives: The king calls the midwives to account and asks them twice why the boys are alive. His plan depended on killing done quietly at the birth, and the midwives' refusal had brought it to nothing. Their answer comes in verse 19, where Adam Clarke treats it as a plain statement of fact about women hardened by labor in the fields.
Exodus 1:18
“And the king called for the midwives,.... Perceiving, by the increase of the Israelites, that they did not obey his commands: and said unto them, why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive? not only did not kill them, but did everything for them that was necessary for their future preservation and health; see Eze 16:4.”
The answer they give Pharaoh is that the Hebrew women deliver before a midwife can reach them. Readers have long asked whether it was true, whether it was a lie, and whether God rewarded them for saying it, and the text records the words and comments on none of that. Verses 20 and 21 credit the fear of God, and Adam Clarke observes that women in constant hard labour do commonly bear more easily, which is the ground on which some read the answer as plain fact.
Exodus 1:19
“The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women - This is a simple statement of what general experience shows to be a fact, viz., that women, who during the whole of their pregnancy are accustomed to hard labor, especially in the open air, have comparatively little pain in parturition. At this time the whole Hebrew nation, men and women, were in a state of slavery, and were obliged to work in mortar and brick, and all manner of service In The Field, Exo 1:14, and this at once accounts for the ease and speediness of their travail.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 1:20-21
God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied again, so Pharaoh's second measure fails the way the first one failed. He made them houses is a Hebrew idiom for building a family, the same expression used of Rachel and Leah at Ruth 4:11 and of David at 2 Samuel 7:11, so women who refused to end Hebrew households were given households of their own. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the reward as attached to the fear of God the verse names, rather than to the answer they gave the king.
Exodus 1:20
“God dealt well with the midwives--This represents God as rewarding them for telling a lie. This difficulty is wholly removed by a more correct translation. To "make" or "build up a house" in Hebrew idiom, means to have a numerous progeny.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
because the midwives feared God: The verse repeats that the midwives feared God and names their reward, families of their own. To have a household built up was a Hebrew way of speaking of children and descendants. Albert Barnes takes it to mean that they married and became mothers in Israel, and calls the expression proverbial.
Exodus 1:21
“Made them houses - i. e. they married Hebrews and became mothers in Israel. The expression is proverbial. See the margin reference.”
The third measure drops the pretence of policy, goes to the whole population, and makes the Nile the instrument. Egypt's life came out of that river and Adam Clarke notes that the river was itself an object of worship, so the killing is done in the water the country depended on. The first plague turns that river to blood at 7:20, which answers the decree in the place where it was carried out. The decree also spares the daughters, and the next chapter has a Hebrew mother, a sister and Pharaoh's own daughter save one child, in a basket the text calls an ark, using the word for Noah's vessel and for nothing else in the Old Testament.
Exodus 1:22
“And Pharaoh charged all his people,.... Finding he could not carry his point with the midwives, he gave a general order to all his people everywhere: saying, every son that is born ye shall cast into the river; the river Nile; not every son born in his kingdom, for this would have ruined it in time; but that was born to the Jews, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan; and it is added in the Septuagint version, to the Hebrews: and every daughter ye shall save alive; for the reasons given See Gill on Exo 1:16.”
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Exodus 1:22
“Ye shall cast into the river - As the Nile, which is here intended, was a sacred river among the Egyptians, it is not unlikely that Pharaoh intended the young Hebrews as an offering to his god, having two objects in view: 1. To increase the fertility of the country by thus procuring, as he might suppose, a proper and sufficient annual inundation; and 2. To prevent an increase of population among the Israelites, and in process of time procure their entire extermination.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative prose that opens as the next paragraph of Genesis, the account of a household becoming a people under forced labour, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The eleven names set at the head of the book | Verses 1 to 4 list the sons of Israel who came to Egypt, in four short lines. The list compresses Genesis 46:8 to 27, running Leah's six sons first, then Rachel's Benjamin, then the four born to Bilhah and Zilpah. Joseph is left out of the roll because he was in Egypt before any of them arrived. Keil and Delitzsch read the book's Hebrew title, Shemoth, as taken from this first verse.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch. | Exodus 1:1, Exodus 1:2, Exodus 1:3, Exodus 1:4 |
| The increase reported after every measure | The chapter says three times that Israel grew. Verse 7 reports the growth that alarms the king, verse 12 reports more growth under the forced labour, and verse 20 reports more again after the order to the midwives. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the second failure as a repeat of the first. Each measure is answered in the terms it was designed to prevent.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible. | Exodus 1:7, Exodus 1:12, Exodus 1:20 |
| One Hebrew root behind the bondage and the worship | The Hebrew root abad stands five times in verses 13 and 14, carried in English by serve, bondage, service, service and serve. It is the loudest repetition in the chapter and an English reader cannot hear it, because one root covers forced labour and worship alike. The same root carries the demand put to Pharaoh at Exodus 4:23 and the order of service the book closes with in chapter 40. Israel goes on serving, and what changes is the master.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch. | Exodus 1:13, Exodus 1:14 |
| The king's three speeches and the hearer of each | Pharaoh speaks three times and the hearer widens at each speech. At verses 9 and 10 he addresses his own people with a plan. At verses 15 and 16 he addresses two midwives with a private order. At verse 22 he addresses all his people with a public decree. Israel makes no speech in the chapter at all. | Exodus 1:9, Exodus 1:15, Exodus 1:22 |
| Sons at the opening and sons at the close | The chapter opens with the names of the sons of Israel who came into Egypt with their father. It closes with an order that every son born to the Hebrews be thrown into the Nile. The same word stands at both ends, first as the roll of a family and then as the object of a decree. Between the two ends the family has become a people the king counts as a danger. | Exodus 1:1, Exodus 1:22 |
The chapter sets the problem the rest of the book answers. Genesis 15:13 told Abram that his seed would be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and would be afflicted there, and the affliction begins at verse 11. The promise of a great nation at Genesis 12:2 is kept in the same verses that make the nation a slave.
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
What runs through the chapter is the failure of every measure. The plan at verses 9 and 10 is built to keep Israel from leaving the country, and leaving the country is the thing God is about to bring about. Matthew Henry reads the plan as ordinary wicked policy, noting that men who deal wickedly commonly believe they are dealing wisely.
The chapter also plants the instrument of the first plague. Pharaoh makes the Nile the means of killing at verse 22, and the river is turned to blood at Exodus 7:20. Adam Clarke reads the decree against the background of the river's own standing in Egypt, where it was an object of worship.
The New Testament's use
Stephen quotes verse 8 at Acts 7:18 when he tells Israel's story to the council, saying that another king arose which knew not Joseph. Stephen also gives the household as threescore and fifteen at Acts 7:14, where the Hebrew of verse 5 gives seventy, and he follows the Septuagint, which counts further descendants of Joseph. Both readings have long been held, and the difference lies in who is counted.
The debated point
Which Pharaoh stands behind verse 8 is disputed, and the text gives no name. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown reckon a change of dynasty about sixty years after Joseph died. Adam Clarke reads the verb rendered knew as acknowledging rather than being informed, which makes verse 8 a statement of policy.
The date of the exodus is held two ways by scholars this site cites, and the oppression of this chapter moves with it. Eugene Merrill, Bryant Wood and Andrew Steinmann read the four hundred and eighty years of 1 Kings 6:1 literally and put the exodus at about 1446 BC. Kenneth Kitchen and James Hoffmeier read the store cities of verse 11 as pointing to the Ramesside period and put the exodus in the thirteenth century BC. Both readings are argued from the same texts and the same archaeology, and the book dossier stamps no verdict on either.
Where to go deeper
The country the chapter is set in is laid out at Egypt. The deliverance the chapter creates the need for is laid out at the Exodus. The decree of verse 22 is answered in the plague that opens at the Ten Plagues.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, on Exodus 1 and Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, on Exodus 1.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter 120; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Methodius of Olympus, Banquet of the Ten Virgins 4.2.